The Marshal's Daughter

  The Marshal’s Daughter

  Marshal Jeremiah Hammond’s young daughter goes off the rails and takes part in a robbery, and he knows it is his duty is to bring her to justice. But the puritanical, God-fearing marshal soon finds that doing one's duty is more complicated than he first thought.

  But when his daughter commits murder, the marshal finds himself fighting with all his strength to protect his family and, putting all his principles aside, must help his precious daughter evade the law. . . .

  By the same author

  The Homesteader’s Daughter

  The Marshal’s Daughter

  Harriet Cade

  ROBERT HALE

  © Harriet Cade 2014

  First published in Great Britain 2014

  ISBN 978-0-7198-2426-5

  The Crowood Press

  The Stable Block

  Crowood Lane

  Ramsbury

  Marlborough

  Wiltshire SN8 2HR

  www.bhwesterns.com

  This e-book first published in 2017

  Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press

  The right of Harriet Cade to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Chapter 1

  It was late afternoon on a raw, grey day at the back-end of October 1879 and Marshal Jeremiah Hammond was feeling mightily ticked off with the world in general and his own life in particular. For eight days he had been tracking a fugitive across Kansas and now into the Indian Territories. This fellow had robbed a bank and then taken a child hostage at gunpoint in order to effect his escape. A posse had caught up with him, the little girl had been killed in the ensuing gunfight and he had still managed to get away. Now he was hiding out in the territories and it was Hammond’s suspicion that he was camped somewhere nearby. The pursuit had been a long and arduous one; he would be glad to catch the man and then either kill him on the spot or take him back to be hanged.

  The land hereabouts was pretty bleak: scrub, interspersed with patches of woodland. As the marshal approached one such little bit of forest, a man on horseback rode out of it towards him. He was an Indian, Choctaw by the look of him. As he drew level with Hammond, the marshal said, ‘I am looking for a white man who is hiding out around here. Have you seen anybody camping or living rough?’

  ‘I no speak English good,’ declared the man and made to move on. Hammond rode his horse into the other man’s path and told him, ‘Yes, I am on to all those tricks which tend towards a man losing the power of speech when questioned by the law. It won’t answer with me; I can tell you that for nothing.’ He showed the Indian his badge and said, ‘I’m a US marshal and I am in pursuit of a dangerous criminal. I will ask you again, have you seen any white man roughing it round these parts?’

  For somebody who had so recently disclaimed the ability to speak good English, the Choctaw’s next sentence was astonishingly fluent, because he said to Marshal Hammond, ‘I don’t believe that your authority covers this territory. Do you have a warrant?’

  ‘Educated man, hey?’ said Hammond, in a tone of voice which suggested that he did not altogether regard education as being a wholly unalloyed good when it led folk to question his authority. He drew the Colt dragoon which was tucked in his belt, cocking it with his thumb as he did so. Then he pointed it at the Indian’s face, saying, ‘This here is my warrant. Now answer my question.’

  ‘Now you speak of it,’ said the man, ‘I mind that I saw somebody camping over in the woods there.’

  ‘There now,’ said Hammond, ‘I thought we might come to it. I am obliged to you for your help.’

  He allowed the Choctaw to ride on and then dismounted from his horse and led her along at a walk towards the trees. When he got there, he tied the mare to a branch and crept stealthily into the woods. There was a smell of wood smoke, which suggested to the marshal a campfire or some such. It was a fair guess that whoever undertook to sleep out of doors at this time of year would be wanting to have a cheerful fire going to ward off the chill night air. He made his way towards where he thought the smell of smoke was coming from.

  After he had moved a few hundred yards, Hammond could see through the trees the ruddy glow of a fire. Approaching carefully with his pistol cocked and ready in his hand, the marshal noted with satisfaction that there was no sound of any voices, indicating to him a lone person sitting by the fire. So it proved, for as he crept closer he saw that only a raggedy, scarecrow figure sat hunched by the fire. It was at this point that things began to go wrong, because Marshal Hammond stepped upon a dry stick, which cracked asunder with a noise like a pistol shot. The shadowy figure leaped to its feet and cried, ‘Who’s there? Answer now or you’ll be getting a minie ball through your heart!’

  Hammond ducked behind a stout oak tree and called, ‘US marshal! Throw down your weapon and step forward.’

  The instant response was a bullet, which slammed into the tree behind which Marshal Hammond was sheltering. The man shouted,

  ‘US marshal be damned! Come an inch closer and you will be killed.’

  Jeremiah Hammond was not a man to hesitate when he knew that right was on his side. He peeped around the tree and saw that the man was now silhouetted against his fire. He had a rifle in his hands and was peering vainly into the darkness. With no further ado, the marshal drew down on the man and shot him. When he did not fall immediately, Hammond fired twice more; once at his chest and then again at his head.

  A cursory search of the campsite soon revealed that the dead man had indeed been the bank robber whom Hammond had been pursuing. A large carpet bag was crammed with bills and gold coins. Many a lawman in this position would have dipped into the bag and taken a few dollars for himself, but Jeremiah Hammond was not of that brand. He would no more have dreamed of taking money in that way than he would have robbing a bank at gunpoint; to him, the two acts were indistinguishable. People might say many harsh things about him, but even his worst enemy would concede that the marshal’s honesty was bred in the bone.

  Hammond dragged the dead man back to the fire and slung him over the pony which was tethered nearby. Then he stamped out the fire, picked up the carpet bag of cash and led the pony out of the woods to where his own horse was waiting.

  On the train back to his home town, Marshal Hammond sat back in his seat and relaxed in that perfect assurance that only the exceedingly self-righteous can ever truly feel; an unshakable conviction that he was an upright, honest and God-fearing man whose actions were always beyond reproach. He lived by the Good Book and as long as his actions were in accordance with Scripture then – as far as Jeremiah Hammond was concerned – there was an end to the matter. The ideas of man were as nothing when compared to the eternal standards by which he lived his own life.

  This belief in his own rectitude made the marshal a difficult man to get along with sometimes and it was not only drunkards and thieves who felt uncomfortable in his presence. Even the minister at his church had been known to remark privately that he feared that if the Lord himself returned to earth, there was a strong possibility that He might find that He fell somewhat short when measured by Jeremiah Hammond’s own strict code of morality.

  As the train pulled into the station, Marshal Hammond felt relieved to be back in his own territory. Everybody knew him in Linton and he was respected both as a lawman and a man of God who lived his faith in public just as he did in his own home, once the doors were closed. Nobody in this town had ever heard any ill of Jeremiah Hammond, of that he was utterly assured.

  As he strolled home from the station, the marshal began to fear that something was amiss with his appearance. Folk walking by greeted him well eno
ugh, but they seemed to be giving him odd looks and after he had passed, he had the impression that some were whispering about him to each other. He stopped by a storefront and checked his reflection in the window, in case he had a smudge on his face or something of the sort. The sober, black-clad figure looking back at him did not strike him as being any different from usual. Still, as he progressed down the street, the feeling became ever stronger that he was the object of remark. He was glad to reach his house.

  Jeremiah Hammond lived with his seventeen- year-old daughter Esther. Her mother had died in childbirth and Hammond’s spinster sister Caroline had moved in with him soon after to help raise the child. She was a deal softer on the girl than he could have wished for, but by and large the arrangement had worked out well enough. As he walked through the door, Marshal Hammond removed his hat and called out, ‘Caro, Esther, I’m back!’

  His sister appeared from the kitchen. She had a look of great anxiety about her and Hammond wondered what was to do. Some trifling matter or other, he guessed. That was spinster women for you, always getting into a fret about something or nothing. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What’s the news? You look worried. Have you broken a plate or blocked up the drains by pouring fat down them? Out with it now, I promise not to be too vexed with you. Where’s Esther?’

  ‘Sit down, Jeremiah. A terrible thing has befallen us and I hardly know how to tell you about it.’

  A sudden cold fear clutched at the marshal’s heart. ‘It’s Esther, isn’t it? What ails her? Has she took sick?’

  ‘No, it has no reference to her health. For aught that I know she is as robust as ever.’

  ‘For aught that you know? Why, what’s the case? Where is the child?’

  ‘She is gone. Please sit down, Jeremiah. I need to tell you what has chanced. If you do not sit, then you may be struck all of a heap by the time I have finished.’

  Reluctantly, Marshal Hammond sat and waited with immense foreboding to hear what his sister had to say. She too sat down, facing him.

  ‘I had best give it to you at once,’ said Caroline Hammond. ‘Esther has run off with a real bad lot, that young fellow who was working over by the depot. Chris Turner is his name.’

  ‘Turner?’ asked the marshal in amazement. ‘Not that mean-looking boy that I had to take up for being in liquor one Sunday afternoon?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ said his sister grimly. ‘Well, to tell you the whole of the business, the two of them robbed the office down at the depot. The night watchman there was struck on the head, but he will live. They made off with over a hundred dollars and have now lit out for the Lord knows where.’

  Hammond shook his head slowly in utter disbelief. ‘But Caroline, there must be some mistake. It could never have been Esther. You must have it wrong. Not my daughter. Why, she teaches in Sunday school. She has never even gone out walking with a boy, never mind running off! No, you have got this all mixed up.’

  His sister looked a little irritable, despite her own grief at the loss of her beloved niece. ‘There’s no mistake, Jeremiah. Leastways, if there is, it is all on your part. That child has done a sight more than go walking with boys as well. I am sorrowed at how she has turned out, but I would be a liar were I to say that I am surprised.’

  Marshal Hammond stood up suddenly. ‘I don’t know what is the matter with you, Caro. To talk so of your own flesh and blood. I won’t hear any more. It is as I say, there has been a mistake. I am going down to the office to straighten things out. Do not let me hear you speak of my daughter in this way again. We will forget what was said.’ With which, he left the house at a brisk walk and went downtown to his office.

  As he headed along, Hammond turned over in his mind what his sister had said. It was just not possible and he was sure that there had been some error, somewhere down the road. His daughter! It was unthinkable. He had raised the child according to Scripture, ever mindful of Proverbs, Chapter twenty two, verse six. ‘Train up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it, even in old age’. There had been little enough frivolity in his daughter’s childhood and he took satisfaction in the realization that while the daughters of his friends often seemed to be straying from the path of righteousness, the same could not be said of Esther. She was as God-fearing a Christian girl as you could hope to meet. No, something was wrong here and he meant to clear the matter up as soon as might be. Just see what happened once he was away from town for a week or so! Everything became tangled up.

  The instant that he crossed the threshold and entered the office, Hammond knew that he had been deceiving himself and that what his sister had told him was true, at least in part. His two deputies looked up when he came in and he saw in their faces that most loathsome of emotions in his eyes: pity for him. It was, unless he missed his guess, mixed also with a certain amount of satisfaction at seeing a Godly man brought low. Well, that was the way of the world. He could withstand this trial as he had done many others in the past.

  The marshal greeted the two younger men by saying cheerfully, ‘Well, what’s to do, boys?’

  ‘Jeremiah,’ said Greg Barnes. ‘I am guessing that you will have heard something about what has happened while you were away. . . .’

  ‘Something, yes,’ said Hammond. ‘Suppose you give me the official version?’

  The two men exchanged glances and stirred uneasily. ‘Well,’ said the other deputy. ‘There are so to speak two official versions and we wanted to set them both before you so that you might give your stamp of approval to one of them, as it were.’

  ‘Two versions?’ said Hammond. ‘Something does not listen right here. Suppose you two just tell me what has happened as best you can. We will worry latter about these two versions.’

  ‘All right,’ said Greg Barnes. ‘It is like this. On Monday night, the office down at the depot was broken into and a hundred and ten dollars stolen. The night watchman turned up and says that there were two people present. One was Chris Turner and the other your Esther. Turner lamped him with a piece of lead pipe and knocked him senseless. When he came to, it was nearly dawn.’

  ‘Is he certain-sure about this?’ said Hammond, ‘Meaning that is about the identity of those who attacked him?’

  ‘He will take oath that it was Turner who hit him and also that Esther was there with him,’ said Barnes flatly.

  ‘Where are they now?’ asked the marshal.

  ‘There was a train heading west stopped for half an hour on Monday night to take on water. We are thinking that Turner and your daughter climbed on it. Leastways, they have neither of them been seen since.’

  Marshal Hammond sat for a full minute without speaking. Neither of his deputies felt inclined to say anything during this time. At last, he said, ‘And what are these two versions of events of which you made mention?’

  Barnes continued. ‘The night watchman had been drinking on duty. I told him that if he said anything about your daughter being there, then I would see that he lost his job. Mind, the story is all over town now, but we can at least avoid having Esther down on the official statements. It will be enough if Turner answers for the robbery.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ asked Hammond.

  ‘Because we would not like to see your daughter in trouble. We thought that we could extricate her and that after a spell, things would die down and folk would forget that she had been named. Either that or we could have her down as a witness or something.’

  ‘Is that how little you two know me?’ said the marshal sternly, ‘You think that I will dodge like a fox and give corrupt testimony to favour my own family? It is not to be thought of.’ He stood up. ‘Hand me the file on this case, I am going down to the court with it.’

  ‘What for, Jeremiah? We can handle this.’

  ‘It seems not. I am going to have warrants sworn out for the pair of them and then I am going to bring them in myself. When I get back, we had best have a talk about perjury and tampering with witnesses. I can see that things have gotten right s
lack in my absence. Two official versions indeed!’

  Marshal Jeremiah Hammond picked up the papers and left the office without bidding either of his deputies farewell. Once he had left, Greg Barnes shook his head in disbelief and said, ‘There goes the hardest man that ever drew breath in this world. Swearing out a warrant for his own child! In all my born days, I never heard the like.’

  Chapter 2

  Once he had finished at the courthouse and sworn out the warrants charging Christopher James Turner and Esther Maria Hammond with robbery with violence, the marshal returned to his house. He was minded to make his peace with Caroline and show her that he held no grudge about the unfortunate developments in his family life.

  ‘I do not blame you for this,’ Hammond told his sister. ‘I will observe that you might perhaps have been a mite stricter with the child and that there were occasions when you undermined my authority, but on the whole. . . .’

  Caroline Hammond was the mildest of women and always mindful of the debt she owed to her brother for taking her in and sheltering her in his house, but even she could not forebear to interrupt at this point. ‘You think that Esther has taken this road because we were too soft with her? Is that what you think, Jeremiah? That had there been even more strictness and forbidding of pleasure and light-heartedness and I don’t know what-all else, then she might not have cut loose in this way?’

  Hammond looked at his sister in astonishment. In all the years she had shared his home, never once had she spoken so to him. He said, ‘Why Caroline, I do not know what is wrong with you today. Yes, certainly I think that we were too easy on the child and that this wickedness is a consequence of our neglecting to correct her more firmly. You must admit that you have often urged me to let her get away with faults that you dismissed as trifling. You share the blame for this, but the main responsibility is mine. I should have been firmer. This evil is a result of my own weakness.’